Fujitsu development enables real-time wraparound vehicle view

by Darren Murph, posted Nov 17th 2008 at 2:00AM

Fujitsu and automotive safety advancements go hand-in-hand, so it's no shock whatsoever to hear that the outfit is fixing to showcase a new technology that enables wraparound view of vehicles in real-time. The new video-processing technology "adapts to different driving situations, enabling the driver to peripherally view the entire surroundings of a vehicle, from the point of view and field of view that is most appropriate for each driving situation." Obviously, such an inclusion would come in handy when parking downtown, passing on a narrow street and / or watching your back should real life ever mimic something straight out of GTA IV. Unfortunately, there's no word as to when an automaker will begin infusing its automobiles with this here invention, but our insurance premiums are begging for it to be sooner rather than later.

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Filed under: Transportation

Tags: automobile, driver, Driver assistance, driver visibility, DriverAssistance, DriverVisibility, driving, Fujitsu, in-car, japan, safety, transportation, vehicle, visibility, Wraparound

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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Patriks7 @ Nov 17th 2008 2:15AM

Damn! This would have been so useful last night! Those fucking mobs chased me on their cars.. Luckily my Banshee was fast enough, but the road wasn't wide enough and their Uzi's almost pwnt me :\
But the good news, this morning I woke up without even a scratch :D

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Techie @ Nov 17th 2008 2:17AM

I wonder if insurances companies will deduct your cost if you have one of these installed on your vehicle. Probably not because they sure love screwing you over but if they do then that's great!

Highly Ranked

Hbishop @ Nov 17th 2008 2:19AM

Good for detecting car jackers and taking a quick peek at the hot blond with the fat ass walking by. Oh the usesage is limitless!!!!

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collegekid13 @ Nov 17th 2008 2:26AM

those pictures just made me very dizzy

Low Ranked

why not the LS2LS7? @ Nov 17th 2008 2:31AM

Those are clearly mockups. Barring development of the kind of phantom cameras they have in Star Trek, you won't be viewing your car from above and behind any time soon, since there isn't a camera following you 20 feet off the ground.

Highly Ranked

Danny @ Nov 17th 2008 3:03AM

If you look at the site they take pictures in all directions and then map them on half a sphere, making it possible to place the virtual camera anywhere around /above he car.
1. take pictures
2. stich them together
3 project them on the sphere, 3d car in the center
4. position camera anywhere within sphere needed
5. render image.

You'll get ugly wherever the spheres surface drops 90 degrees down right infront of you but other then tat it works beautifully. Kind of neat.

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Toby @ Nov 17th 2008 3:05AM

I suspect you may have missed the entire point of this new technology.

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why not the LS2LS7? @ Nov 17th 2008 3:22AM

I'm familiar with how these systems work when showing the ground.

But note you cannot project the images from a point of view other than where they were taken or it won't look anywhere near right. For example, you take a picture of the person behind you, you see the side of them facing the car, then you try to map an image that shows the view from behind the car, but in that picture the side of the person facing away from the car would be visible. And without any Star Trek cameras you don't have that data.

So like I said...

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Plothole @ Nov 17th 2008 4:59AM

Look at the photos closely. In the "over the shoulder" view you don't actually see anything behind the car. You don't even really see the car for that matter. And in the other views the image warps at the edge, clearly showing the same point of view as the vehicle.

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harry4657 @ Nov 17th 2008 3:56AM

haha, i thought it was a picture of stargate...lol

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rotarydialz @ Nov 17th 2008 4:11AM

I would like to have it hooked up to my car alarm. Having a picture of the car thief could be useful. If the image is distorted there are programs that can fix that.

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BratPAQ @ Nov 17th 2008 6:17AM

nice idea, dont just stop at pictures, take full video and audio of surroundings, at least of the last 30 minutes, incase of car accident or traffic enforcers harassing you, you'll have proof of what happened.

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ro @ Nov 17th 2008 6:30AM

I already possess a '...wraparound view of (my) vehicle in real-time'. I open my eyes and turn my head alternately left and right. I even have a rear view mirror.

Seems to work just fine...

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Srin @ Nov 17th 2008 7:05AM

How is this different from the technology already on the Infiniti Fx and Ex?

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Plothole @ Nov 17th 2008 4:58PM

The difference is that the Infiniti produces an image similar to the one on the left. This technology gives you images like in the center and right.

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Srin @ Nov 17th 2008 7:09AM

Forgot to include the link: http://www.autoblog.com/2007/03/29/infinitis-around-view-monitor-is-watching/

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Captain Drew @ Nov 17th 2008 7:18AM

Drat! We were typing at the same time... thanks for including the YouTube link. I knew that Nissan was already on top of this tech.

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Captain Drew @ Nov 17th 2008 7:14AM

I *knew* that this concept felt recycled but it took some searching to find an earlier instance of this multi-camera, stitched-together, top-view camera system. Turns out that Nissan was working on this back as far as 2005 ( http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/27/the-nissan-over-head-view-eliminates-blind-spots/ ), possibly with Fujitsu? Who knows. Note that this older story only has an illustrated mockup, but I distinctly remember seeing an article with actual stitched-together HUD images. Do any of you other older Engadgeteers remember seeing that article? Can you track it down? Ta!

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